


and if you want to cry, i am here to dry your eyes and in no time, you’ll be fine.

by fbawtft



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: M/M, and by 1990 everyone probs had one, and stan and richie would probably be in adult hood by this time, but for the sake of this plot, but you do what you gotta do for plot reasons, cell phones were popular in 1983, deal w it, idk it just worked like that, ik its a misconception, so itd be like 2000, they dont have cellphones, they dont their own cell phones, yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fbawtft/pseuds/fbawtft
Summary: title is a lyric from Sade's By Your Side





	and if you want to cry, i am here to dry your eyes and in no time, you’ll be fine.

Stan was comfortably placed on the couch in his shared apartment with Richie (who was currently out). His back was leaned against the arm rest, the lamp on the little coffee table spilling light that flooded over his shoulders and onto the browning pages of the novel he was immersed in. He had gotten bored with the tv about an hour ago and decided to turn the volume down real low so the apartment wouldn’t be too quiet.

Richie had told him he’d be home in ten minutes. That was thirty minutes ago. Past the ten minute mark Richie had mentioned, Stan hadn’t really worried - Richie usually stops by the corner store for some snacks for the walk home. The store is three blocks from where they live.

Maybe he got caught up in a conversation with the cashier, they were both on first name basis with the employees of the store. That thought eased Stan’s nerves only slightly.

By the twenty-minute-past-Richie’s-estimation mark, Stan had forgone reading the book, only placing his bookmark in the crease half-heartedly. He didn’t really have a way to contact his boyfriend and he wasn’t about to go out at a quarter to midnight to go searching all over town for him. He was scared, sure, but not as scared as he was when Richie stumbled through the door ten minutes later all pink and swollen and… _bleeding._

His breath caught in his throat as he quickly shoved the throw blanket and book to the other side of couch and threw himself at his boyfriend. “Holy shit, what happened to you?” A vague memory of Richie saying those words years ago flashed in his mind and immediately vanished.

Richie, a stupid shit-eating grin on his face, had the gall to laugh. And then cough his lungs out. “Some dude on the way home was beating up someone else and who would I be to not step in? So I did and proceeded to get myself beat up. Guy got away though, was intimidated by something else, I guess.” He coughed into his hands. Stan led him through their bedroom to the connecting bathroom. The hands he had around Richie’s pinker-than-pink wrist and apparently bruising side (“Ow, watch it, Uris, he slammed me into the wall”).

“Sit,” Stan points to the toilet seat. Richie didn’t say anything, only closed the lid and relaxed down onto the cool it, the feeling like heaven on the backs of his thighs through his jeans. Stan kicked a step stool over by Richie’s feet and grabbed their emergency basket of first aid and squatted down on the short seat. Stan cleaned Richie’s bloodied knuckles, earning little hisses and such from the bespectactled boy. After he wrapped them up in bandages, he moved onto his knees and blotted them with rubbing alcohol.

“You don’t have to wrap those,” he whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he nodded solemnly. Then, “Who knows, someone could ask, and I could just say that I got them in battle, fighting for the love of a birdy bookworm like you,” he laughed. How he could smile with all that gunk on his face, Stan was unsure. What he was sure about was that he joke Richie made had finally pushed Stan to tears and shaky hands.

He sniffed wetly, trying his damndest to blink away the tears, trying to hid it.

He couldn’t. Richie saw.

“Hey, hey, Stan the Man, why are you crying? It was just a joke.”

“I know that, dumbass. It’s just… That guy could’ve not ran off.  He could’ve kept beating you up to a pulp and you wouldn’t have made it and no one would’ve known you were there,” the tears are falling freely down his face now. He drops his head to try and prevent Richie from seeing him cry as his hands drop to fall limp on his thighs. “You wouldn’t have made it home,” he finishes quietly, clenching his hands into fists and gritting his teeth.

“Whoa, whoa, Stanny, where’s this coming from?”

Stan shook his head, too afraid to speak his feelings - he’d grown accustomed to not saying how he felt in his childhood home. He was always told not to say such things or that he shouldn’t feel like that. Richie, on the other hand, had no problem voicing his opinion or feelings to Stan or their friends. Stan shook with sobs as he covered his mouth to try and quiet himself. Richie slipped from the toilet seat to the floor, sorta-kneeling-sorta-squatting in front of his boyfriend as he tried to comfort him. “Stan… Stan, Stanley, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere,” he sat up to properly kneel as he pulled him in for a hug. “I’m not going anywhere at all, shh..”

“I’m sorry,” he managed through the heaving.

“You shouldn’t be, I don't entirely get it but I understand and appreciate the concern. It’s nice to have someone really, truly care for me and worry about if I’m coming home or not,” he kissed the side of his head, carding his fingers through Stan’s curls and rubbing his back with his other hand in a comforting gesture.

Stan had calmed down considerably, resorting to breathing through his mouth as his nose was stuffed beyond belief from crying. “I probably look like shit,” he scoffed, wiping away the tears.

Richie grinned, brushing his hair back, “Aw, only a bit, Stan.”

Stan smiled and shoved at Richie, laughing.


End file.
